The lawyer who represented more than 100,000 people in a settlement with BP
over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spillage has accused the company of viewing
the US as a colony it can exploit.

Joe Rice said a new, combative stance from BP over the disaster would backfire on the company and compared it with a war between Britain and the US two centuries ago. He also claimed that BP could do little to prevent further payouts on top of the £27.3bn it has already paid out.

As BP’s costs related to the disaster have spiralled, it has changed stance over how it deals with claims, contesting how payouts are settled and claiming that many were “fictitious”. Last month, chief executive Bob Dudley promised the company was “digging in” on the “absurd outcomes” of the legal battles.

Mr Rice - who sits on a representative committee that negotiated a settlement with BP in March - claimed that BP’s fighting talk is a grave error and amounted to an attack on victims of the disaster.

“In our view, BP views us as a colony that they own and can exploit, it’s outrageous,” he told the Reuters news agency. “I think they’ve made a vast strategic error by fighting and shifting this whole battle to an attack on the people of the Gulf. Any goodwill they built on trying to do the right thing, they have destroyed.”

He compared BP’s position to a British attack on US-held New Orleans in 1814 during the 1812-1815 war between the two nations. “We’re going back to the 1814 attack,” he said.

BP responded by saying his comments were over the top. “To hear Mr Rice’s xenophobic name-calling and hyperbolic characterisations, you’d think the war of 1812 was still raging,” a spokesman said.

“While we are willing to pay legitimate claims, we did not agree to pay for fictitious losses, or for claims that are based on fraud or tainted by corruption. We are defending our rights, shining a light on abuses, and keeping people informed.

“This is our legal right – one Mr Rice should remember was at the heart of the revolution he invokes.”

The war of words comes as BP continues to battle claims related to the disaster, which it recently said has cost it $42.4bn (£27.3bn) to date. In the most recent fightback, it asked a US judge to prevent investors from launching a collective lawsuit against the company.

The investors allege that BP lied in order to cover up the estimated cost of the disaster in order to stem falls in its share price. BP, which denies the claims, said: "Plaintiffs must demonstrate that the alleged misrepresentations were publicly known."

Meanwhile, BP is suing the US environment agency over a blanket ban on winning new work for the US government.